Thursday, January 12, 2012

Change is Good

No, this isn’t a post about the just-announced and
forthcoming version of Dungeon & Dragons (but we’ll get to that in a
moment). This is about looking forward to 2012 and new directions in the year
to come—which may be important on the off-chance the Mayans knew something we
don’t.

Last year, I announced that this blog would be coming to an
end. I felt that I had taken the Society as far as it could go based on my
original purpose of chronicling my return to the gaming fold and wishing to
contribute something to this nebulous thing we call the Old School Renaissance
(or whatever OSR stands for this week). In some ways, I still believe that. I’ve
done what I set out to do and succeeded beyond my wildest expectations.

Since its inception, this blog and the material produced for
it allowed me to establish a presence hitherto undreamt of—by me anyway— in the
gaming community and the industry that supports us. I don’t think anyone can
dispute that The Dungeon Alphabet and Stonehell Dungeon remain examples of
some of the better works created by this movement. The Dungeon Alphabet was
especially well-received and is one of the few works that achieved success
outside of the OSR, drawing praise from not only grognards but folks who
entered this hobby in more recent years. That continues to blow my mind.

Having done what I set out to do, my choices were to either
start anew or shut down. My workload made me more inclined to the latter. But
with the start of the New Year, my attitude has changed. I’m hacking away at
the “To Be Done” list, and although I expect it will fill up again (at least I’m
praying it will), I think I’ll be able to dedicate some more time to this blog
o’ mine. The Society has been around for more than three years now and
maintains a steady readership. And while it doesn’t have the number of fans
some older and more prolific blogs have, SoTPR is still in the upper echelon of
old school blogs. It seems as shame to throw away all that hard work now.

So what to do? First off, it’s high time this place got a
revamp. In the weeks ahead I will be playing with the design a bit to come up
with something new, but still legible. I’ll be editing and updating my links
section and playing with ideas for a nifty new banner up top (I remain one of
the few elder statesmen of blognards who has never gone beyond a text header).
It’ll likely be a hack job since the visual arts is not my forte, but I’ll endeavor
to keep it classy and discrete.

Secondly, I’m going to fold my side blog Secret Antiquities
into this one. The premise of having a secondary blog for material not directly
relating to fantasy gaming was sound, but the end result was two blogs I
ignored and not much progress made on either. Seeing as we’re all gamers, I don’t
think anyone will mind too much if I post the occasional design ideas for a
system other than D&D and its various clones. Unless my readership starts
abandoning the joint in droves, expect to see some reposting of things from
Secret Antiquities here as I integrate both blogs into one.

Thirdly, and I know I’ve stated it before, 2012 will be the
year the Stonehell sequel is finally released. The fact that it is so far
behind tears me up more than I’d like to admit and since my name is synonymous with
that dungeon, I feel its failure to see the light of day reflects poorly on me.
To correct this, I’m committed to producing one new quadrant of Stonehell a
week. While that might mean it takes all year to complete the manuscript, slow
progress trumps no progress.

Lastly, although connected to the above, 2012 will see me at
GaryCon IV. I intend to try and play as much as I can, but I will be bringing
Stonehell with me to Lake Geneva, hopefully with brand new material to test
drive. There are no official Stonehell sessions on the schedule, but if you
corner me, I’ll gladly run it during the open gaming portions of the con. I’ll
even allow your FLAILSNAILERS to bring your PCs for a visit if that’s cool with
how things work in FLAILSNAIL-land. As always, Stonehell’s Save Your Ass T-shirts will be
honored, so grab one now and edge out your competition for loot.

More projects and plans will be announced as they develop,
but I think the above is going to keep me busy for awhile.

OK, with that out of the way, let me say my piece on the 5th
edition which isn’t the 5th edition of D&D. In all honesty, I
was completely indifferent about the announcement. That surprised me a little,
but it’s the truth. There’s no gnashing of teeth or rending of raiment here.
The game will come, I’ll check it out, and if it’s fun and captures my
interest, I’ll play it from time to time. I’ve no expectations that it will
heal the great edition rift or create the greatest version of the game ever. I
might run it or I might not. I signed up to get a look at the beta version once
it’s released, but I suspect that will be the extent of my involvement. I’m
certainly not going to attempt to steer its direction. It will be whatever Mike
and Monte design within the boundaries laid down by management. I wish them the
best and hope Wizards comes out with an entertaining diversion that attracts
more gamers to the fold. After all, more tabletop gamers are good in the grand
scheme of things.

I don’t expect to give much coverage to the game here so
this may very well be the last words I say on the game until it is released.
Others will certainly be following its development with close scrutiny. I’ll
say this though: “5E” looks really, really strange when seen written out to my
eyes. I must be getting older.

Thirdly, and I know I’ve stated it before, 2012 will be the year the Stonehell sequel is finally released.

That's great news, as is the news that you'll keep this blog going. I've copied a bit of Stonehell for my GURPS megadungeon (literally, I copied and cut and pasted it onto my map). And I've been itching to see what's in those lower levels of the dungeon . . .

Who's to Blame

Despite having never been a professional adventurer, Michael Curtis has nonetheless deciphered cryptic writings, handled ancient maps and texts, ridden both a camel and an elephant, fallen off a mountain, participated in a mystical rite, and discovered the resting places of lost treasures. He can be contacted at poleandrope @ gmaildotcom